As well known in the art, since cooling water cannot be heated sufficiently at an early stage of starting of a vehicle in winter, the interior of the vehicle cannot be heated quickly. Accordingly, a radiant heater emitting radiant heat can be mounted in the interior of the vehicle to emit radiant heat directly toward a passenger such that a comforting heating effect is enhanced.
Such a radiant heater for a vehicle is mounted in the interior of the vehicle at a position of the lower side of a dashboard, a steering column of a driver's seat side, a glove box of a passenger seat side, or a backrest of a front seat, etc., and emits radiant heat directly toward legs of a passenger, thereby performing quick heating.
For example, as shown in FIG. 1, a conventional radiant heater 1 is configured such that the radiant heater 1 is mounted on a lower surface of a steering column 13 connected to a steering wheel 14 of a vehicle driver's seat, and emits radiant heat toward legs 12 of a driver sitting on a seat 11. As shown in FIG. 2, the radiant heater 1 has a structure in which a substrate 2, and a radiating portion 3, a heating portion 4, and a terminal 7 are provided on a substrate 2. Further, the radiant heater 1 includes a plurality of radiating portions 3 and a plurality of heating portions 4, wherein the radiating portions 3 have a thin plate shape and the plurality of radiating portions 3 are arranged to be distanced from each other. A low heat conducting portion 6 made of a resin is provided between adjacent radiating portions 3 so that the radiating portions 3 are surrounded by the low heat conducting portion 6.
However, such a radiant heater for a vehicle has disadvantages in that it is necessary that the radiating portions that are heaters should be arranged on the substrate, the low heat conducting portions should be formed by using the resin, and the heating portions should be closely coupled thereto, leading to a complicated structure and thus it is difficult to manufacture. In addition, in order to control the heating temperature differently depending on the location, the arrangement and the number of the radiating portions need to be controlled, which causes a problem in that a structure for electrically connecting the radiating portions is complicated, and the arrangement of the radiating portions is not easy.